Voluble and dogged but largely ineffective

 Look, life has got very, very busy at the time of scheduling and I really haven’t time to do anything like advancing. I’m sitting down here and looking at the view.  The photos should come in this order.  Ahead. Right. Behind. Left.

The weather’s ok. We’ve some time.  You remember George de Lacy Evans, you know, commanded the British Legion. Let’s talk about him.

Evans was born in 1787, in Moig, County Limerick of modest Anglo-Norman stock,.  He was educated at the Woolwich Academy and like  his elder brother Richard joined the East India Company's forces in 1800 before volunteering for the British Army in India in 1806. He became an ensign in the 22nd Regiment of Foot in 1807 then exchanged into the 3rd Light Dragoons in order to take part in the Peninsular War.  He declined a chance to go to Persia and, instead, served as a lieutenant in the staff.  The History of Parliament records he was ‘conspicuously brave’.

He was sent on the expedition to the United States of 1814 during the War of 1812 under Major General Robert Ross. Evans was quartermaster general to Ross at the Battle of Bladensburg on 24th August 1814, and during the Burning of Washington, as well as at the Battle of North Point on 12th September 1814, where Ross was killed.  

Obviously life was nearly exciting enough. Returning to Europe when Napoleon decided on his unsuccessful 1815 reboot.  Evans was present at the battles of Quatre Bras and Waterloo. In three months he went from Lieutenant to Lieutenant Colonel.  In 1818 he went onto a captain’s  half pay.  He briefly came out of half pay in 1819 to command troops during disturbances in Glasgow.

The 1820s saw him left £20,000 by Robert Otway Cave of Stanford Hall, who he helped in his Parliamentary career. Although he had no personal experience in Central Asia, Evans became increasingly concerned that Russia had designs on India posing a threat of an attack through Central Asia and set about writing two books, “On the Designs of Russia” (1828) and “On the Practicability of an Invasion of British India” (1829).

In1830 he was persuaded to stand as an independent by the worthies of Rye and was returned as MP in a by-election.  To quote the History of Parliament website ‘On 27 May he presented the petition of the inhabitants of Rye complaining of an abuse of magisterial power by Herbert Barrett Curteis*, who earlier that month had sent in coast guards to curb disorders resulting from the townsmen’s destruction of a sluice which was impeding the free navigation of Rye harbour and the river Rother. Evans outlined the recent history of the dispute on this issue between the townsmen and the neighbouring landowners, who included Curteis and his father, Member for Sussex. He argued that his constituents had been ‘morally justifiable’ in wrecking the sluice: not only had the landowners defied a chancery decree of 1826 by failing to modify it, but they had in 1830 introduced a bill intended to annul that decree.

He went on to be MP for Rye in 1831-32 and Westminster 1833-41 and 1846-1865.  The aforementioned website said of him ‘Evans proved to be a voluble and dogged but largely ineffective parliamentarian in this period. He was a self consciously poor speaker, and his ignorance of parliamentary protocol frequently led him astray.’  https://historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1820-1832/member/evans-george-1787-1870

It was while he was MP for Westminster he commanded the British Legion in the Carlist Wars. In 1846 he was promoted to Major General. In 1854 he reach the dizzy heights of Lieutenant General.   Evans was appointed to command the 2nd Division at the start of the Crimean War, and fought at the Battle of the Alma. Around the time of the Battle of Inkerman, he was sick, so Major General John Pennefather was in command of the division and Evans was sent home.

Evans died in the Lord Leycester Hospital - where we held a wedding reception - and was buried in Kensal Green Cemetery - where he has a very solid tomb.